Thoughts on linkage

So probably you've been following the recent brouhaha about appropriate linking behavior among blogs. I'm not going to talk about that specific case, but the whole thing has gotten me thinking about link etiquette and all that.

Historically, I think there may have been a tradition of asking first before linking. I say this because I've received (in the past, not within the last five years or so) requests from other sites asking if they could link to my site. I always thought this was a little odd, and often took it as a genteel and somewhat passive way of asking me to link to their site. But it may have been something that was more common in the net's earlier days, I don't really know (and I've been on the net for a few years now). I think it may also have been more common within certain sorts of net community, particularly those where folks tend to get more personal in their intereactions in addition to whatever topical focus there may be. (F'rex, you see a lot of that in crafting communities, quilting and so forth.) In less close-knit communities it seems to matter less.

My real point here, though, is that I think you have to differentiate between sorts of links.

A link in your sidebar is a recommendation of sorts; whether this indicates that a linked site is one that mirrors your own views, one that is informational, or (as in my own case) means simply "ooh! ooh! a blog about comics!" Some folks indicate the nature of their permanent links by describing them or by grouping them with similar sites. Others, the lazy folks (as I like to refer to myself :)), just pile them all up, alphabetically or not. When I've had informational (non-personal, non-blog) websites in the past, I've usually set up a separate page of links, divided by category, because the list is as much for my own use as for the "hey, you should read this!" thing. I try to do some of that on my Brainfreeze blog, and keep meaning to subdivide further but have never gotten around to it. (I will admit that grouping all "comic blogs" together is pretty unhelpful, even to me.) Because there are some awesome comic blogs out there, you know who you are :). Sidebar links are like the Links Page on a non-blog website, they're static.

A link within a post is usually a referential link, which is very different. It's used to point out an example of something you're discussing (or possibly a stand-alone point of interest within a blog or other site), and isn't necessarily a recommended site, although it can be and often is. It's more likely to be to a specific post of a blog rather than to the blog's main page. It's more likely to have specific commentary. In other words, the reason the link is there is usually obvious either by context or from discussion. There's no recommendation being made of the site as a whole, and there's no presumption made on the part of the casual viewer that the two sites agree on anything. Referential links are rare in traditional non-blog websites.

I'm relatively new to the Blogger community, but my impression is that the primary community-building aspect here has to do with referential in-post links, and sidebar links are nice but beside the main point in that respect. Otherwise why would sites like Technorati exist? Comments are very rare (especially compared with places like Livejournal, where commenting is one of the primary community-building tools), and links genuinely link, in more ways than the obvious. Possibly that's the source of some of the feeling surrounding the issue?